It Ends Tonight
by nine miles to go
Summary: Season Six Spoilers. JD's having some trouble coming to terms with Kim's news. Will he learn the truth before it's too late? JDA.
1. Chapter One

Disclaimer: I don't own Scrubs. Or the song. Which is a great song, btw...All American Rejects.

**SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT**

**ALERT**

**ALERT**

**ALERT**

**SPOILER ALERT!**

Alright, who else is PISSED OFF at that BITCH we called Kim? SO UNWORTHY OF OUR JD. So, in order to redeem myself of the awful sin that is my fic "How to Save a Life" (depicting Kim as a...hissssss..._good_ person), I'm writing more JDA...bitch-Kim style.

TAKE THAT, BREAKER OF MY MAN'S HEART! TAKE THATTTT!!

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**It Ends Tonight**

_Chapter One_

My tent was growing colder now that the late winter was finally coming. It snowed last night. I froze my _ass_ off.

Elliot offered to let me move in with her last week. I just said no. I'm not much into company these days. I feel like an idiot—going all the way down to Tacoma just to see our baby, _my_ baby, only to find out that there was never going to _be _a baby. It felt like the last seam of the shirt of life had unraveled until there was only a thread left, barely clinging on. I was the thread. I just...I'm hanging there, useless, unnecessary.

I look outside and see the white sheen of a thin layer of snow. I kick the corners of the tent, shaking it off and watching the frozen bits slide off. Shivering, I manage to tug my scrubs on and brush my teeth with the water I'd kept in a thermos (it freezes otherwise). I really ought to try and find myself a place—I know. But wasn't this supposed to be the place? This porch...wasn't it going to be a home?

I shudder, from cold and remorse. It's been nine days since Kim told me, and since then I've felt completely numb. I haven't even cried. It feels like the baby never left, and hell, it was never here to begin with. Why would this happen? Because we didn't want it enough? Was it Laverne's Jesus getting back at us for considering abortion?

My shift starts at six thirty again. I check my watch—twenty minutes to get to work. I look out at the snow, then back at Sasha. This is going to be tricky with all the ice on the road, isn't it?

I decide not to care. It's not like I really care about anything now, it seems. It's not like I'm depressed. I'm just...nonchalant. Passive. Observant. Watching people around me live their lives and wondering about them—what fuels them, what their passions are, who waits for them to come home every night.

Nobody waits for me. That I'm sure of.

Sasha's engine sputters and dies. "Damn it," I whisper to myself through chattering teeth. But I'm not really mad. I'm not actually living it. I'm detached, watching some overgrown kid trying to kick a shiny blue scooter back to life.

My toe hurts. I quit kicking Sasha and decide to walk instead.

_Your subtleties  
They strangle me  
I can't explain myself at all  
And all the wants  
And all the needs  
All I don't want to need at all_

"Morning, JD."

I shift the coffee cup in my hand, trying to read the quote on the side. Then I decide it's not worth the effort and set it down, choosing instead to stare blankly at the lid. There are little plastic pop-up buttons. "Decaf' and "skim" and things like that. There was a time that I would have pressed them all down...maybe that was just days ago. I don't know.

Staring at the cup, I realize that I can't even remember what I ordered. I can't remember ordering it. How long was I in line? I just wanted to get warm, I suppose.

"JD?"

God, my hands are freaking frozen. I look at them in my lap, completely white and unfeeling. Perchance I would invest in a pair of gloves the next time I went out for a ride. But that, again, drew back to the original point: who cares? What does it matter? We'll all die anyway. Might as well feel something before we go.

The table tops were scratched now. I remember when they were shiny and new, right after the hospital's coffee shop opened. Now their alluring gleam was replaced by a dull color, faded and stained, its abuse evident after the past few months. How many times had I sat at this very table, adding to the damage?

"JD, snap the hell out of it!" Elliot says grumpily, kicking my chair.

My head snaps up, facing her. "Sorry," I mutter. "Distracted."

Her face grows a bit more sympathetic. "It's hard," she stated, not as a question.

I nod. She's the only one who knows about this. I...I didn't feel like telling anyone else just yet. Not even Turk. I don't even know what possessed me to tell her and that patient. Maybe I just needed to get it off my chest.

She puts her hand on mine. "Do you want me to tell them?" she asks.

I think about it for a moment. Finally, I shake my head. "No. Thanks, though." I hand her the coffee and walk away.

_The walls start breathing  
My minds unweaving  
Maybe it's best you leave me alone  
A weight is lifted  
On this evening  
I give the final blow_

My shift is over but I have nowhere to go, so I'm sitting on the freezing roof like the homeless bum that I am. This just sucks. I feel like I'm hovering in a separate plane than the rest of the world, caught in limbo between the world I used to be a part of and the world I want to be in. But where do I want to be? Do I even know?

I close my eyes and let myself imagine my world. It's all the usual people, at least. Brown Bear, Elliot, Carla, Izzie...hell, maybe even Keith and Dr. Cox and Jordan. But there's a face sitting at the table, catching my lopsided throw, grinning toothlessly at a birthday party, calling me daddy. I would do anything to see the face for real, instead of conjuring one in recesses of my mind.

The fantasies I used to lose myself in have diminished, and this is all that's left—what could have been. What I wanted. What I had counted on for so long.

I try to remember what my life was like before Kim became pregnant, but I can't even begin to recall. Was I happy? Was I ever happy? Am I _un_happy right now? Or just...floating?

The door to the roof opens. I stay still, hoping whoever it is will feel the cold blast of air that assaulted me earlier and have the common sense to turn around and go back down the stairs, away from me.

"JD," Carla gasps. "There you are! We've been looking all over for you. What the hell are you doing up _here_?" She looks around in disgust, hugging her sleeves to her chest.

"Thinking," I say, shrugging. "You need me?"

She scowls. "We were gonna go out to that Thai place, remember?"

"Oh." No, I don't remember. Whatever. Let her push me around. I could barely move as it was, figuratively and literally.

"You poor thing...you're frozen," she scolded me, grabbing my arm. "What were you thinking?"

"Lots of things," I say distantly.

Concern flickers in her eyes. She stops dragging me towards the door and looks at me in the eye for the first time since I came back from Tacoma. "Bambi...what's the matter?"

I shake my head. "Later," I say.

"No, tell me _now_," she demands, but gently.

I hesitate. "It's nothing. It's...all over now," I say, offering her a small smile.

_When darkness turns to light_

_It ends tonight  
It ends tonight_

* * *

No worries, everyone, that's only chapter one. It gets SOOOOOO much worse for JD, I promise. I mean, have I EVER written a Scrubs fic without torturing him?

If you answered no, then...well, you wouldn't be reading this, because I'd have killed you before you could! Ha!

Review, plzzzz :D


	2. Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I don't own Scrubs.

* * *

**It Ends Tonight**

_Chapter Two_

"Excuse me?"

Someone grabs my arm on the way out of the hospital. I wave Carla off, motioning for her to head to the car, and turn to the stranger.

"Hi," she says graciously. "I was looking for the...er..." She looks a bit out of her territory. Normally I'd help, but I can't even begin to figure out how. A joke? A chuckle? Did it really help people all that much?

"...the...surgery floor?" she asks tentatively.

I allow myself to smile a tiny bit. "Looking for someone up there?"

"I am," she affirms. "Kim Briggs?"

My throat feels tight. "Oh...Kim." The flood of memories come back, so fresh they might have happened ten minutes ago. I thought I'd worn myself out over this topic on the roof, but apparently not quite. Besides, who was looking for Kim _here_? She'd been gone for months now. Was the cosmos trying to poke fun at me in my misery, remind me of everything I'd lost?

"Kim doesn't work here anymore, she's up in Tacoma," I explain, frowning again. "Why, you need her?"

"Oh...well..." She looks a bit flustered. "It's just, I'm a med school friend of hers, and when she called me to say she was pregnant I decided to surprise her. Funny—the hospital still has her listed here," she mused, giggling self-consciously. "Tacoma, you said? I can't wait to see her—"

"Um, you might want to know...she's...not pregnant anymore," I say quietly, just in case anyone I know is nearby. I'm not ready for the news to be out yet. Dr. Cox and Jordan were barely just past their own mess, Turk and Carla were in some twisted state of marital bliss, and...well, there isn't a reason to tell anyone else. Elliot knows. To anyone else, I'd only be a bother.

The woman's eyes bulge. "What? What happened?" she demands, pleading at me with her eyes.

"Miscarriage," I say, my throat constricted. I don't know why, but I suddenly feel compelled to converse with this woman in more sentences than I'd used with anyone in days (not that anyone's noticed, that's for sure). "Last week...she found out. I drove up to Tacoma to see her..."

My eyes are stinging, but there aren't any tears. I almost expect them, but then I realize that I'm not going to cry. It's disappointing. I'm upset...shouldn't I cry? What's _wrong _with me?

"My God...poor thing..." She turns to me curiously after a moment. "How do you know Kim?"

"Oh...I'm, uh..." I see Carla waving frantically through the window, trying to tell me to hurry up. I ignore her for a moment. "I was the father."

The woman is shell-shocked. She doesn't know what to say, and I don't want to hear whatever she comes up with. "Call her," I say. "She'll need friends right now." I smile sadly at her and hurry out of the room, following Carla's orders.

_A falling star  
Least I fall alone  
I can't explain what you can't explain  
You're finding things that you didn't know  
I look at you with such disdain_

"You want to hold Izzie?" Carla asks, smiling widely. She knows how much I love...I _loved..._holding Baby Bear. I was their emergency babysitter, their go-to-guy, the daddy-in-training. Every opportunity I could get I would hold her.

It's different now. I shake my head.

"Why?" asks Carla snappishly. "I thought you loved holding her." She plops the baby in my lap, obviously trying to prove a point.

My hands are shaking. Suddenly I'm afraid I'll drop her. I don't know if I can handle this after all that's happened. Izzie looks up at me with her wide, brown eyes, gazing at me unflinchingly. She doesn't know how to judge people yet, she doesn't know how to speak words that can twist themselves into horrible, awful things, she doesn't know how to scowl or hurt someone or spite people—but even she can sense the heaviness in the air, the sadness radiating off of me. Her face scrunches and she lets out a wail.

"Take her," I rush to say, handing her back to Carla in a flash.

"Oh, c'mon, JD," she says, rolling her eyes and calming the baby down. "I'm sure she's just hungry. It's not like there's a fire or something."

I don't reply. My pager beeps. I look at it and it reads, _JD, can Keith trade shifts with you tomorrow? _Elliot, of course. Who else? She's the only one who manhandles the poor intern (not that that stops me from hating him any less, though).

"I...I gotta go," I say, holding up the pager as an excuse. A total lie, but I didn't feel so bad about it. It's not like I have to set a good example for anyone. No one cares enough about me to get pissed off at the sudden change. In fact, lying actually feels a little bit nice—at least in this instance. Now I don't have to deal with Izzie.

Not to be taken the wrong way—I love Izzie. I know I do. But I'm not ready.

"Aw, Bambi," Carla groans. "We've been waiting all month to get together! Turk's almost finished ordering up front!"

"Tell him I'm sorry. I am," I say, though not as sincerely as I could have. What does she want from me? Two seconds ago she was chewing me out for acting less-than-perfect about little snookums in her arms.

"Yeah," she says, waving me out. "Go ahead and leave, I'll tell him."

I get up from the table, trying with all my self-restraint not to run out of the restaurant.

"But JD?"

Damn it.

"You and I are going to have a talk," she says, making her no-nonsense face. Great...just great.

_The walls start breathing  
My minds unweaving  
Maybe it's best you leave me alone.  
A weight is lifted  
On this evening  
I give the final blow_.

I haven't really been able to sleep. I keep meaning to, of course—what with the sleeping bag all set up, the alarm clock set, and the pillow underneath my head. But somehow sleep eludes me every time I close my eyes. Maybe because it's cold. Maybe because I'm stressed. Maybe...because all of it doesn't add up.

Wasn't Kim's ultrasound supposed to be the day _after _I arrived? The thought suddenly strikes me, jolting me out of my haze. I sit up quickly, smacking my head on the top of the tent. Yeah, it was, wasn't it? So why hadn't she called me to tell me she'd rescheduled it? I mean, I understand why she didn't call me afterward. No one wants to tell the father of their unborn child that their child doesn't exist anymore—common sense on that part. But if she was changing the day, wasn't it only right for her to _call _me about it? Wasn't I supposed to be a part of her life, too?

In the dark I fumble for my phone, wondering if it would still be appropriate to call her. The lack of light makes it impossible to find anything, but I can't wait until morning. When I'm ready to curse the very ancestors of my ancestors for letting the idiotic Dorian reign continue on this earth, the phone rings.

I follow the noise. "Hello," I say grimly into the receiver.

"Hey, it's me," says Elliot. "Did you get my page earlier about switching shifts with Keith? He can't work in the afternoon tomorrow because we're going out to dinner. He could take your morning shift..." she appeals to me, as if it's the most alluring idea in world.

"Elliot, it's, like, two in the morning," I grumble, pulling my blankets closer into me and trying to stave off the cold.

"Oh!" she exclaims. "Frick. I didn't...sorry. I didn't wake you up, did I?"

I sigh. "No, I was up."

"Okay, good," she says in a rush. "So?"

"What?"

"Can you cover for Keith?"

I can't exactly lie. I have nothing to do tomorrow. Or the next day, or the next, or...ever, for that matter. "Sure," I say dejectedly. "I'll see you sometime tomorrow." I hang up the phone before she can distract me from my trail of thought: calling Kim.

I start dialing. My fingers are so familiar with the fluid motions of her numbers that they seem to glide over the buttons, as they always have, but then—

I stop. I can't call her. Hearing her voice...would be too much.

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Thanks for all the reviews, guys :D. I'm so glad everyone else agrees that Kim's bitchface. It certainly made me feel better about the MOUNTING DISTRESS AND ANGER.

Ahem. I will try to respond to the reviews soon, kay? I promise. Eventually. Like...when I get a life. Tomorrow might be a snow day!


	3. Chapter Three

Disclaimer: I don't own Scrubs.

Sorry this took so long to get up. I'm working on continuing _Blur _and possibly updating some of my abandoned _Charmed _fics. We'll see what happens. I was just looking over my unfinished fics and feeling kinda depressed about my lack of closure, lol. So look out for those...?

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**It Ends Tonight**

_Chapter Three_

_When darkness turns to light  
It ends tonight  
It ends tonight  
Just a little insight won't make this right  
It's too late to fight  
It ends tonight  
It ends tonight_

It's a good thing Keith and I switched shifts earlier, because I feel like I just got off of a twenty-four hour flight to oblivion without a single free bag of peanuts. I slept right through my alarm and woke up at ten, panicking—but then I remembered that I wouldn't actually start my shift till three, thanks to Elliot's monkey.

"Susannah."

I keep walking past Dr. Cox, looking for Elliot. She told me to find her before she left just to confirm that I was here. I frowned—what, didn't she trust me to show for a shift? When had I _not_ shown up, despite . . . all the crap that's been going on?

Then, as I make my way for her private practice office (which is quite posh now that her paycheck is fatter than Elvis on his peanut butter banana sandwiches), I realize what I've done. I've ignored Dr. Cox. I just walked right past him.

I flinch, knowing what's coming, but I keep walking. Maybe he was actually addressing someone named Susannah. Oh, hell, who am I kidding? I'm dead meat now.

"Newbie!" Dr. Cox yells to get my attention, slapping my back with his clipboard. I reluctantly turn towards him, feeling a bit dizzy. His angry expression seems to turn to one of disgust, and he sighs dramatically. "Alright, I get it. Maybe your favorite soap star got killed off last night right in front of her three children hours before her amazing wedding to the guy who killed her; maybe someone just walked right on up to you and ruined the latest Harry Potter book ending for you, just when you were _about_ to read it for yourself; gee golly, Princess, maybe you realized that you've gotten so skinny that your favorite miniskirt doesn't fit anymore, and now you have nothing to match that Abercrombie polo you bought on sale last week—_whatever _the reason for your distress, please suck it up long enough to get through your shift. Because honestly, your pity party over here is scaring the patients."

I nod, my heart pounding in my head, my eyes trying to search for a clear image to end the blurry mass that the room has become.

"Lay off, Dr. Cox," Elliot barks, coming over and grabbing my arm. She drags me to her office. I'm only half-aware of my surroundings by now.

"Lay off?" Dr. Cox laughs piercingly. "The girl's been in fairyland for days now." He looks around Elliot's office with a mixture of scorn and disbelief, still a bit angry about the private practice shindig. "Maybe you're used to it, Barbie, since you never actually have to _think_ to treat your patients anymore, but Newbie here can't afford to drift off as if she's—"

He's cut off because I fall over, not of my own accord. And then—also out of my control—I completely lose consciousness, and finally escape the buzzing of thoughts in my head.

_When darkness turns to light  
It ends tonight  
It ends tonight  
Just a little insight won't make this right  
It's too late to fight  
It ends tonight  
It ends tonight_

"Why didn't he tell me?"

Because I didn't want you to know. I didn't want anyone to know—I didn't want to be a burden on your happy skipping-through-the-flowers lives, okay?

"He . . . uh . . . told me not to tell anyone."

Damn it. Who is she talking to? I almost dare to open my eyes and check, but I'm almost too afraid to find out. Turk would be mad. Carla would be mad. Any of my friends would be mad about me keeping this ugly thing from them. But in truth . . . who really wants to hear JD's Troubles: Episode 9000 billion? Nobody.

"Damn it, Newbie," the voice mutters. But now the voice has a face that I can see without opening my eyes. My throat constricts and I suddenly feel like there's a weight of guilt pressing on my chest.

Dr. Cox. If there's anyone who gets to hear about my oh-so-fabulous miscarriage, Dr. Cox is the worst person to know. He'll probably just make fun of me like he always does and make my life a living hell. Maybe he'll sock me in the face like he did that one time when my father died. I wouldn't be at all surprised.

"It's not fair," Elliot says quietly.

I hear a distinct pause in the conversation. Without moving, I manage to piece together the fragments of noises and bustling to figure out that I must be in the hospital . . . except as a patient this time. I feel the starchy bed sheets laced in my fingers as a confirmation to that. There's something so calming about being in an actual building, surrounded by real people, that is so much more assuring than sleeping in a tent on your front porch. A guy could get used to this.

"No, it isn't," Dr. Cox finally agrees, his voice uncharacteristically somber. He lets out a breath. "And to think we came so close to . . . losing our own child. And then they . . . it really isn't fair at all."

Is he choking up? Oh, c'mon, keep it together! Even I haven't cried about it. Could someone please stop acting like the whole world is crumbling underneath us?

Then I remember the sleepless nights, the waking nightmares. That sick feeling that washes over me whenever I see, hear, or smell anything remotely like a baby. The emptiness in my heart. Everything that I've lost.

And that's when my own tears creep into my closed eyelids, forced back by the overwhelming sleep sweeping over me again.

Before I completely conk out again, though, I hear Elliot's words and a sudden dread overtakes me: "I told Kim about this whole mess . . . she's getting on a plane and visiting as soon as she can."

_Now I'm on my own side  
It's better than being on your side  
It's my fault when you're blind  
It's better that I see it through your eyes_

When I admit myself out of the hospital, I don't see Dr. Cox or Elliot anywhere. It's nighttime. I figure that by now poor Sasha has rotted in the parking lot, waiting for me. I start heading down there when someone grabs my shoulder, which, of course, leads to me jumping up and squealing like the prissy girl Dr. Cox always knew I could be.

"JD."

Carla draws me into a near bone-crushing hug, which ends up being quite awkward with my lanky tallness and her being so short. I hug her back, bracing myself. Is she hugging me because I have vasovagal syncope or because I managed to lose my girlfriend and my baby all in one day?

"Uh . . . hi," I manage weakly.

"Are you going home?" she asks.

I nod. "Yeah." As I pull back, I see her eyes glistening with tears. I wonder if I'll start to cry, too. But I don't.

"I'll drive you," she says, and in that instant I realize that—whether I want it to or not—everyone and everything is going to change. I don't want to be perceived as That Weak Guy who needs everyone's help to get by. But I can see as Carla drags me purposefully through the halls of Sacred Heart towards the parking lot, it doesn't matter how I think things should be. After all, I didn't think I should get some cracked-up random illness. And I certainly never thought that Kim should ever miscarry. Does it ever matter what I want, anyway?

I guess I wanted to become a doctor. I am one. Is it a one-wish-only system in life?

"My . . . scooter," I remind her, somewhat breathlessly, trying to take in the activity of people all at once. Moving around as if nothing's happened. Has it always been this way? Suddenly everyone's going so fast and I'm so far behind.

"Is at your . . . tent. Turk drove it over. But . . . Elliot's having you stay at her place for awhile. I know you refused before," she interrupts me before I can protest, "but we all agreed that we'd feel much better if you stayed with her. She has plenty of room. And Kim is already there."

"Kim?" I ask, my throat tight again. Why am I so scared to see her? Because she'll remind me of all the things I've tried to crush from my mind in the past two weeks?

She stops. We're outside by now; it's colder than I remember it being, and I'm suddenly thankful that I'm not coming home to my sad excuse for a shelter.

"Is that alright?" she probes carefully, searching my eyes.

I swallow hard. "Y-yeah. I mean . . . I've missed her and all . . ." I trail off stupidly, my tongue feeling like rubber.

What am I so afraid of?

_All these thoughts locked inside  
Now you're the first to know_

* * *

Oh my gosh, it's sooooo late. Anyway. G'night. Anyone see the Oscars? Haha! I love Ellen Degeneres!


	4. Chapter Four

Disclaimer: I don't own Scrubs.

* * *

**It Ends Tonight**_Chapter Three_

Kim takes my hand and rests it on the coffee table. Ha—coffee table. Who called it that? Does anyone actually eat coffee in front of the television now that we have industrial sized donuts and microwavable hot chocolate?

"I need to tell you something."

Her hands are cold. Reluctantly, I look up at her. I notice that the tension in the air is as thick as pancake batter; suddenly it feels as if we never really knew each other at all. We're strangers in a strange place we've never been before. The spacious, white walls of Elliot's new house suddenly seem like the walls of the hospital, and here we are again, meeting each other again as if we only knew each other in different lives.

When I look up at her, though, I realize that she's looking at our hands. The wedding band is back on, I notice with a start. Why . . . why would she do that? I thought she decided not to wear it anymore.

It's so shiny and innocent, a single diamond, winking in the slight sun coming in from daybreak. I'm looking at our hands now, too. The way they're touching without actually feeling. And just how normal it feels to hold her hand—there's no spark, no epiphany, no loves that shoots to the moon and back.

Maybe we were never really in love. But we did share something beautiful that was never coming back.

"Yeah?" I ask quietly.

She clears her throat. "Uh, JD . . . "

Kim's expression is pained, focused so hard on our hands that it looks for a moment as if she isn't even breathing. There's a tremor in her touch, a shakiness in her voice that I've never heard before. She looks desperate and guilty and sad when she finally raises her head to stare me in the face.

"I wish . . . so _much_ . . . that . . . "

I move to hug her but she shakes her head, tears springing to her eyes. "_No_, JD, we can't," she says firmly. I'm not sure who she's angry at, though. Me? Or herself?

"Oh. Sorry," I say softly. It's different now that we aren't going to be parents, I guess. Maybe she never really liked me at all.

_When darkness turns to light  
It ends tonight  
It ends tonight  
Just a little insight won't make this right  
It's too late to fight  
It ends tonight_

"No," Kim says again, "I'm sorry." Then she awkwardly leans in closer to me and puts a hand on my shoulder, as if she's afraid to touch it.

"Why?" I ask. What reason did she have to be sorry?

"I . . . I wasn't straight with you."

"_What?_" I suddenly imagine lesbian Kim and lesbian Molly and lesbian Carla coming in for a three-way kiss. Then they all mash into each other, receive violent concussions and pass out cold. See? I _never_ get to the good part. "You're . . . well, okay . . . "

"No, stupid! I mean, I wasn't honest with you," she clarifies, fidgeting. She takes her hand off my shoulder and starts fiddling with her wedding band, twisting it this way and that as if it's too uncomfortable to be on her finger. I don't ask her about it—turns out I didn't need to.

"I wish more than anything, JD, that you were the father," Kim bursts out, fat tears suddenly rolling down her cheeks and plopping into her lap. A shudder of remorse runs up her spine and she gasps a bit, saying, "It's just not _fair!_"

I gawk at her. "Kim . . . we'll be okay. Let's just start where we left off. Before the baby. You know, a third date?" I ask lightly, trying to cheer her up. I grab her a tissue from Elliot's table and hand it to her.

She ignores the gesture, crying hysterically, "No, we _can't_ 'start where we left off'! That's the thing, JD. There . . . there should never have _been _a start. Oh, God," she moans. "Oh, God . . . I can't . . . I'm sorry."

"What?" I press her, panic welling in my chest. "What's wrong?"

"JD, I never had a miscarriage."

The room chills and my blood runs cold. My head feels numb and dizzy and elated all at once. Then comes the disbelief—babies didn't come _back_ from miscarrying. So that means . . . there never _had _been one? Kim _lied _to me?

I thought she loved me.

"Wait . . . but that would mean that our baby—"

"_My _baby." She lets out a sob, her face red and blotchy. "Mine and . . . my ex-husband's."

_It ends when darkness turns to light  
It ends tonight  
It ends tonight  
Just a little insight won't make this right  
It's too late to fight  
It ends tonight_

"JD?"

Blackberries. Elliot left the blackberries she was washing in her kitchen sink.

Kim sobs.

"JD, I'm sorry. I was stupid. I thought . . . oh, God, look at this mess. I'm marrying him again. It's the only way for the baby to . . . have a normal life."

I nod numbly, staring at a painting on Elliot's wall. It's of a little girl in a garden. She looks a bit like . . . Kim and me. Big eyes brown eyes, blonde hair, a little hat on her head. The child that would have been ours.

"_Look at me_," she demands, frenzy in her voice. She grabs my hand again, clutching to it violently as if it were her last lifeline. Then she's hugging me harder than I've ever been hugged before, shaking in my arms, muttering words I can't even hear through the warble of her sobbing.

"Say something," she asks me. "Please."

It's too much, but I comply. Before I can even think, the words have escaped: "Do you love him?"

Now we're drowning in that pancake-batter-tension. She slackens in my arms, whispering, "I don't know. Maybe. Probably not. I mean . . . " Her breath hitches, rattling from her crying. "I wish it were really you. You'd be a good father, JD. I know you would be. This _sucks_," she declares outright.

Finally I gain enough use of my arms to hug her back.

"I'm going home tonight," she whispers, "but remember that I will love you as one of my best friends for as long as I live."

_It ends tonight  
Tonight, insight  
When darkness turns to light_

Elliot sets the grocery bags down on the counter, regarding my stiffened position. I've been sitting here staring at the blank television for hours. Once she's finished putting her frozen goods away, she sits down silently beside me and stares as I stare.

"She told you," she says grimly.

My head turns slightly to look at her through the corner of my eye. She has tears in her eyes and she's politely not staring at me as my eyes fill with tears.

I'm not even mad that Elliot knows. Maybe she knew before I did—women were just _like _that, always telling each other everything. "Yes," I admit, feeling myself start to quiver with the effort of not crying.

Then I can't stop. Noiseless tears of devastation and betrayal fall down my cheeks. Who am I mad at? Kim, for lying to me? The bastard who impregnated her? The baby itself? Or me, for being so naive and stupid in thinking that everything would be okay?

"I'm so sorry," she says, her voice raw and sincere. She leans in and hugs me in the same way Kim did earlier. Except this time _I'm _the one who needs support, not Kim. I cry on her shoulder, reddening with the humiliation of it all, right from the second Kim said the words "JD, I'm pregnant" to the moment I'm living in.

"It was _our _baby," I say, my voice strained. "And she . . . "

"I know," she says soothingly, "I know. It hurts."

I sigh, shuddering heavily. "Why does it feel like everything's falling apart?"

Elliot waited for a while before she replied. "Maybe . . . maybe because you have to start new. Maybe it's time to rebuild." She pulls away from the hug, giving me a small, watery smile. "Maybe this means that you have to move on."

I nod. "I guess I'll try."

_It ends tonight_

* * *

End.

I'd write more, but the next eppie of Scrubs season six is starting in less than THREE MINUTES!! AHHHH! Okay, okay, SHUT UP, time to UPDATE! (Soooo not talking to myself over here). LESS THAN TWO MINUTES! CRAAAAP!


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